Apple Maps are Life Threatening

[Buddlespit]

I'm a service tech. I fix refrigerators in the Tidewater area of Hampton Roads, VA. I run service in 8 cities. I use Google Maps. I have for years. In fact, it's the most important application on my phone. You really can't beat a picture of the house you're supposed to be at, especially when people can't bother to number their houses. In 5yrs, it has only driven me wrong once, which is a story in itself...

[SteveRiley]

Well, don't leave us in suspense!

[Buddlespit]

Back in 2011, we had a couple of North Carolina techs get "sick" (heartattack and back surgery), so I had a route in the backwoods of NC bordering VA for two months. Daily, I would drive porrly maintained back roads and well used dirt roads. Once, late in the day, "Bitching Betty" on my phone told me to turn left onto a one lane blacktop when I was still about 15 minutes from my next stop. The blacktop soon became a dirt road and I drove thru a gate, which eventually became a dirt track. Mind you, I'm driving a full sized service van. Google Maps was showing a road, and I guess I was still on a road. It got so tight that I had to pull my side mirrors in. At that point, I was starting to look for a clearing so I could turn around. Backing out was out of the question. It took me about an hour to drive 2 miles to the next gate, which soon became a dirt road and then eventually a single lane blacktop and then a right onto a two lane highway. About 5 minutes later, I arrived at my next customer. I apologized for being late and explained why and a look of horror crossed her face. She explained to me that I had crossed thru a local hunt clubs land and it was black bear season. She told me that I was damned lucky that a) the gates where open and 2) I didn't get eaten by bear. I had visions of two bears watching me, one nudging the other and saying "George, did you order Sears take-out? I didn't know they delivered!"

That was the one and only time Google Maps steered me wrong.

[Qqmike]

Desert "roads" in the USA Southwest ... for example, New Mexico ... Not sure how you would define a desert road! Is it a cow path? an old cowboy trail for wagons? something a rancher made the previous Tuesday with a grader? Whatever it is, it changes; it can even change abruptly, even disappear, after heavy rains; or right in the middle of a road you count on, a deep crevice appears overnight with the storms. As a rockhound, I wouldn't trust any map unless it was made about an hour before I got there at that specific point!

[GreyGeek]

I followed directions to a new client's feedlot near the Bad Lands of South Dakota and after quite a few twists and turns ended following a two track dirt road to a small cemetery at the top of a lonely hill. "mmm...", I thought. "I hope the rest of the gig doesn't go like this!" Fortunately, I had a RS bag phone with me and called the client and told him where the directions I was given led me to. "Opps!", he said, "you were given the wrong directions!".

[oshunluvr]

Ok, here's mine: We were vacationing in France and had a French GPS (Garmin). We drove to Barcelona Spain and had a hotel reserved in the Gothic Quarter of the city. I figured - no problem, the GPS will take us right to our destination. Unfortunately, the GPS didn't know that they close the streets into the Gothic Quarter during tourist season to all vehicles except taxis and not all the one-way streets were correct. Apparently, the maps hadn't been updated in awhile.

So after being directed onto one-way streets (fortunately, I can read traffic signs and saw the error before actually making the turn), turns down streets so narrow the mirrors had to be folded in, streets so full of pedestrians you couldn't see where the sidewalk ended and the street began, and led down several streets closed by hydrolic bollards (one set of which we almost were impaled on becasue I was closely following a taxi!) for over an hour - we eventually quit trying and parked the car in a city lot and walked the six blocks to our hotel hauling all our luggage.

Not life threatening, but highly frustrating! I suppose it didn't help I don't really speak French!

[Qqmike]

Good story, GreyGeek, fun in the badlands, huh? I've seen it where you are driving as you always do through a desert region (New Mexico) when all of a sudden your trusted "road" comes to an abrupt end at a 15-feet drop off (a wash out). Talk about rolling out the toilet tissue.